Minutes to Midnight
2 stars
Poor Mike Shinoda. The co-vocalist of Linkin Park (he’s the one who raps, while Chester Bennington sings) is nearly entirely absent, at least vocally, from his band’s third album, Minutes to Midnight. As rap-rock has fallen out of fashion, Linkin Park, arguably the genre’s biggest band over the long haul, has adapted accordingly, and thus Shinoda and DJ Joseph Hahn shift into the background on the new material. Shinoda plays a little guitar and shares production credits with Rick Rubin, and Hahn contributes some drum loops and electronic elements, but they both seem marginalized in a sound that now owes more to The Used and My Chemical Romance than it does to Korn and Limp Bizkit.
“Put me out of my misery,” Bennington screams on opener “Given Up,” sounding like every other sad emo dude on the radio right now, and continuing to sound that way through a few heavier tunes and three completely insipid ballads that will go great next to the latest from All-American Rejects on adult-contemporary stations.
Shinoda pops up to rap on two songs, and to sing rather blandly on another, but his presence almost seems like an afterthought. So successful at homogenizing and capitalizing on the last big hard-rock trend, his band slips smoothly and anonymously into the next.